What are your opinions on free ranging?

[SummerTheAnimalGirl]

Hello everyone! I was wondering what everyone’s opinions on free ranging nowadays are? There was a time where there was no other way of raising chickens, but I know that has changed. Especially during the midst of avian influenza. So what are your opinions?

Personally, I am all for free ranging, and can’t imagine raising a flock any other way. I believe my flock would pick a short happy life of freedom, versus a long life of enclosure. But this is just my personal opinion! So I was curious of what you guys thought!

Thanks for everyone that takes my poll!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I free range. Lose a couple to predation each year. Unavoidable, unfortunately.

/edit to clarify.
My (usually 80 or so) birds have two open houses, and open run of roughly 2200 sq ft, almost two acres of pasture, and another near three acres of thinned woods inside my electric fence. With great frequency, they hop, dodge and limbo the electric fence and its gates, and enjoy the acre cleared for my home and the rest of this corner of my 30 acre property. They don't leave my property.

...and nobody elses birds enter my property. If they did, they would be put down as quickly as I can manage, and then burned in a very hot fire. I take my biosecurity pretty seriously, for someone who free ranges.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

I'd love to free range my flock full time, but I don't know if I dare to due to risk of a predator. I do, however, let them free range a lot when I'm outside. I'd say some weeks my birds are 50/50, half penned, other half free ranged.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Let me make a point and maybe stir the pot a bit:

I would assert any argument that starts as “I can’t free range because I have too many predators” is an invalid argument unless you qualify it with “… because I have too many predators AND I raise breeds that are not predator resistant. I acknowledge that there are many breeds of chickens in the world that are highly predator resistant and would thrive in my predator-rich environment, but I choose not to raise those.”

If you don’t believe there are chickens out there that can out-thrive and reproduce faster than coyotes, hawks, and whatever predator gauntlet they’re thrown down can harvest them, then that just tells me there’s a bunch of chickens out there you need to learn about.

There’s no such thing as your location having more predators than the right chickens can handle.

Point taken. I DO raise some of those breeds, but not all of the breeds I have are those breeds. And even if ALL of the breeds I have were "predator-resistant," out-thriving and reproducing faster than the many predators that live where I live doesn't jive with my purpose for having chickens.

 

[Battlepants]

Too many aerial predators around here. They got one and came back for more. Not losing any more to them.

 

[3KillerBs]

I don't free range because I like my garden.

I don't free range because we share the property with my sister-in-law who would be FURIOUS if my chickens ate her beloved flowers and dug the mulch out of her carefully-tended beds.

They even go to the neighbors sometimes

I would be very upset to have someone else's chickens wandering into my yard to damage my garden and my SIL's flowerbeds even "only" once a month.

Not to mention the possibility that they might bring disease to my flock or that a neighbor's rooster might fight my roosters or try to lure my hens into his flock.

 

[gtaus]

Personally, I am all for free ranging, and can’t imagine raising a flock any other way. I believe my flock would pick a short happy life of freedom, versus a long life of enclosure.

Depends on where you live. Free ranging chickens in my area have a life expectancy of less than one summer. But I live on a lake and we have hawks and Bald Eagles overhead all the time. I keep my hens in a 12X36 foot chicken run that has bird netting on top of it. I don't think they suffer at all.

Would I prefer to let my chickens free range? Yes. But knowing the risks of a very, very short free range life for them, I keep them safe in a covered run and have not had any losses due to predators in over 3 years.

Also, I bring the free range to them. I dump all my grass clippings and leaves in the chicken run. They spend all day foraging through the chicken run litter eating bugs and worms.

Where I live, people who let their chickens free range are known as former chicken owners.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I suspect a renewed respect for goats will come first. a cow is simply too big an animal for almost anyone to process themself, and storage becomes impractical.

But I've been wrong (many, many, many times) before.

I just got into mini-cows. Way easier to handle than full sized cows.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

 

[Aunt Angus]

They'll still have plenty of room if I add more, right? lol

I see your master plan unfolding. You'll start there, but soon spread your flock to other neighbors' properties.

First your neighborhood.

Then the WORLD.